How can I make a backup copy & keep date the same?

[Mike99]

How can I make a backup copy & keep date the same?

I’ve search quite a bit for an answer & the only thing I’ve found is using some command line programs to do the job. If I was only going to make a backup copy of a few files or folders that probably would not be a problem.

But I’m trying to purge useless files from the main HDD and/or the EHD. And update files & folders as I go along. I've been having both drives open in 2 different Windows Explorers so I can compare things & tweak as I go along. Closing out or minimizing these & going to command line mode seems time consuming, especially since I’ll be constantly having to jump back & forth.

Isn’t there any slick Windows app that makes it easy to copy to another drive & keeps dates the same?

 

[RolandJS]

Be careful while having two Explorer windows open. Long ago, I did that, had two operations going at the same time, lost control of explorer.exe, forcing me to boot and restore a recent OS full image backup; this was some time ago, W98SE. However, it sounds like you're being careful, so I doubt you will have any problems.
I was going to recommend Explorer++ and/or FreeCommanderXE, however, I'm not sure if those will make your copy/purge life any easier. I'm still trying to visualize a part of the very good stuff you're going! I love doing geeky things

 

[Mike99]

I have two Explorer windows open side-by-side & compare the drive contents. If I copy anything from the main HDD to the backup EHD the date changes. This causes problems the next time that I want to check if files or folders are updated because the dates don't match.

Does Explorer++ and/or FreeCommanderXE keep dates from changing?

 

[RolandJS]

...Does Explorer++ and/or FreeCommanderXE keep dates from changing?

Don't know, haven't tried them that way, yet. If I find out either way, will post results.

 

[Mike99]

I did go to both of their websites & did some Googling. I saw one comment that FreeCommanderXE would keep the timestamps intact, however I didn't see anything like that mentioned on their website. I'll download it & give it a try.

Thank you for the suggestions.

 

[Barman58]

In order to do what you want with dates you need File Backup Software rather than File Management Software like Windows Explorer.

A file when it is moved or copied will have its last accessed attribute set to the date of the activity. This attribute is the one that forms the basis of date in the explorer there are others such as creation date but these are not easily used

take a look at FreeFileSync which is totally free open source software and will allow you to backup small numbers of files to complete drives as you need